Gage served in the South Carolina Statehouse until he was elected a trial court judge in 1898.[2] He served as a trial judge for the Sixth Circuit until being elevated to the South Carolina Supreme Court.[3]
Judge Gage wrote one of the earliest decisions recognizing the "exclusionary rule" in Town of Blacksburg v. Beam, 104 S.C. 145, 88 S.E. 441 (1916). In that opinion he said, "It is better that the guilty shall escape, rather than another offense be committed in the proof of guilt."

Gage was born on February 4, 1856, and he died on February 13, 1921. He is buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Chester, South Carolina.[4]